Multicultural television in Norway

This entire summer, NRK2, one of the state TV channels in Norway, have been broadcasting Bollywood movies every Friday night. To me, this was a real treat. Although I don’t enjoy every singly Bollywood movie (how could I, when they produce over 900 per year?), I seem to me more receptive to them than many others. In Jakarta, I found a theatre owned by an Indian family, that often showed the latest Indian movie, and that provided perfect escape from reality - I also saw some really great movies, like Dhoom:2, Lage Raho Munna Bhai and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. I have been enjoying watching the movies this summer with my mother (it is fun to share such a moment with her). Movies I really enjoyed were Dhoom, Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. and Mohabbatein.

Tonight I saw that they were showing Fanaa - a movie I saw during my first month in Jakarta and really loved. It’s a crazy movie, almost like two movies turned into one - after about 1,5 hours it completely changes from docile love-story to high-octane terrorist thriller… and back. Only Bollywood, I tell you, only Bollywood.

Of course, for me it is extra fun because I have some small ambitions of eventually learning Hindi. So I enjoy trying to pick up words and phrases when they speak (this probably annoys my mother quite a bit). I am incredibly happy though, that Norway has a state television that dares to show foreign films from around the world (with no advertising of course). Yesterday we watched a German film on NRK1 (Agnes und seine Bruder) which was also quite good. And most days, there is a French movie, a Spanish movie, a Danish… NRK2 even had a Brazilian soap this summer (City of Men) which was great - since I am kind of planning to learn Portuguese as well.

Norway might be a lot less multi-cultural than Toronto, and we have problems with integration and xenophobia. But I love things like this. And of course I am still waiting for them to recognize the world’s biggest film industry: Nollywood!

Stian

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 1st, 2007 at 18:53 and is filed under India, media, movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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3 Responses to “Multicultural television in Norway”

  1. marta
    September 8th, 2007 @ 8:32

    Nigerian cinema and its alleged booming production was something that I had absolutely no idea about until I watched Good Copy, Bad Copy. What a gem. And no one knows! So is one of those films the one you said was shot in Poland? I still want to get the scoop on that one, been searching polish newspapers but since I don’t know the title I haven’t come across anything legit. Also, since you’re ignoring my invitations I decided to blog alone! haha. you can see the results at onenumberfan.blogspot.com and losttotwoseas.blogspot.com two takes on my life for my bipolar brain ;) hope you arrived well! and get in touch.

  2. Diedie
    September 16th, 2007 @ 0:52

    Namastey!
    Nice to watch moves with mother.:)I have not done that since I grew up. Well OK, share some random experiences with Indian cinema here.

    I used to go to cinema with my Indian friends for Bollywood movies. I was always surprised how some kind of hot MTV-like dancing and singing can come in the middle of nowhere.And the love songs in Bollywood movies or MTVs are sooooo sentimental, even much more than the Chinese ones…Indian lovers have their hearts and arms wide open and sing. hehe. And sometimes I fell asleep in Bollywood films because it was just intermission after 1.5-2 hours’ viewing. I enjoyed Indian audiences just yell out their reaction to certain scenes in the theater. Very lively cinema experience.:)

    My Indian friends sometimes starred in my little movie projects. One time my friend Denish had to used up all all the cigarettes he had for me to practice filming a film nor scene. He looked cool though, lighting his cigarettes and having his face in the dark. And another hero of mine Geno could win Buffalo Oscar by running past the light pole and suddenly grab it with a frightened and desperate look…And Pramod was the most cute and responsible “light boy” and cook…:)

    For non-Bollywood Indian films, I really like the old classic trilogy by Satyajit Ray.It’s said to use an ethnographic style in fiction films to represent every life of a corner of India: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apur_Sansar

    Indian cinema seemed really locally diverse because all the languages they have. I would like know more about them. “Nayagan” in Tamil cinema is really great. It is called “God Father” in Tamil cinema. I love the actor and the ending theme song:
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093603/

    Many of my American friends and I like internationally acclaimed Indian-born Mira Nair and her “Indian Films,” like “Moonsoon Wedding” and “Salaam Bombay!”
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265343/
    But some of my Indian friends said her films were quite westernized. They especially trashed “Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love.”http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116743/
    (But the actress indeed has a hot figure…)

  3. Diedie
    September 16th, 2007 @ 0:57

    hehe. Check the director of Niyakan out. A really interesting and important director in Tamil and Hindi cinema:
    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0711745/bio

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